Christmas Memories

I'm sure most of us have a lot of Christmas memories.  I do, largely because so much of the ghost of my my Christmas past was caught on home movies and video. In fact, one of our Christmas traditions is to sit around and watch video of Christmas gone by. We haven’t done that this year yet; no one can remember how to work the VCR! But those memories are as vivid as if I were watching the tape now--

• Memories of Lynn holding up her first cellular phone (which was the size of a suitcase), and saying “I got a car phone” to the camera. The girls still mimic her saying that.
  
  
• Memories of Tressa watching her little sister open a gift and then realizing that it was one of her old toys that we had gotten from the attic and were “re-gifting” (back then we called it “hand-me-downs”). Tressa would start to say, “Hey that’s my…” and then her mother jerked her out of frame.
  
  
• Memories of Angelynn opening a Christmas card, holding up the contents for the camera and saying, “A check!” And then she threw it down behind her as she headed for a package that looked more like a toy.
  
  
• Memories of me as the cameraman waiting until all the gifts were opened and then saying, “Hey, the camera was off; wrap them all up and let's do it all over again.”  The girls love that!
  

Of course, my most vivid Christmas memory is of the Christmas morning we spent in Mary Immaculate Hospital in 1981. If you want a little extra Christmas hoopla, have a baby on Christmas morning in a Catholic hospital!  We headed to the hospital just before midnight on Christmas Eve, and our Christmas baby was born at 8:20 that morning. The first thing the doctor did was to turn on the radio in the birthing room so we could listen to Christmas music. (To this day, Lynn starts doing Lamaze breathing every time she hears “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”). One of my most vivid memories of that day was Lynn hurting (back then, women were women and painkillers were for men) and holding my hand so tightly it hurt… and not letting go for about four hours. I had to visit the facilities, but I couldn’t because she was holding my hand. By the doctor came in and distracted her so that I get to the restroom, I had been doing Lamaze breathing with her trying to manage my own pain. For some reason, she never felt sorry for me. Go figure.

Christmas memories.  Christmas is indeed a special time of year. It is a time of joy and celebration, of home and family, and time off from work. That’s why “Tis the season to be jolly,” right? But not everyone is jolly this time of year. In fact, holidays can be the most depressing time of the year. We have expectations that are never really met in reality. Some don’t have family or good family memories. Some suffer through financial woes and sickness and divorce and the death of loved ones, and these always seem hurt more at this season. There can be a great difference between the way things should be and the way things really are.

While we celebrate the Christmas season, may we remember those for whom this season is very difficult. May we remember Jesus’ words that “It is more blessed to give than receive.” May we also remember what He said about banquets—don’t invite people that can repay you but rather invite those who can’t, “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.” Jesus says, “Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Lk 14:14).

When Band-Aids Aren't Enough

The book Night of the Grizzly tells the true story of 1972 bear attack in Glacier National Park. Two young women who were camping in the park were mauled to death in separate attacks by a rogue bear. This story might not play very well today— it actually blamed the bear, not the victims, for the attack. And the heroes of the story were rangers who tracked down and destroyed the rogue bear.

In the story, there were two doctors vacationing in the park that did their best to save one of the victims. Both knew from one look at the victim that she had no chance of survival, but they valiantly fought top save her anyway. As they worked to repair the damage caused by severed limbs and severe tissue loss, they noticed a young, dazed park ranger putting peroxide and Band-Aids on scratches. One of the doctors later remarked how struck he was by the irony. Here was a woman literally eaten alive, and someone was putting Band-Aids on scratches?

OK, this is a pretty visceral illustration, but we need to see the point, I think. Doesn’t it seem at times like the church in putting Band-Aids on scratches? We can find ourselves so embroiled in trivial things while the more important things of the faith are ignored. Jesus died to make us one, to tear down the dividing walls between us and we seem intent on building those walls back while the world goes its merry way to hell.

Some of the issues that those in my religious tribe have fought and divided over in the past now seem pretty silly when viewed from the distance of time—multiple cups in communion, individual Bible classes, the support of orphan homes, the use of modern Bible versions, whether or not we worship with instruments, and the list goes on. What is it that seems so important to us today that will seem silly in 100 years? How many people can or can’t hold a microphone during church? Whether or not women can or can’t, must or must not, take a more active role in the worship service? Whether we like to admit it or not, most of the things that we have fought and divided over are about how we do church in the hour or so we are together on Sunday mornings. Is this really the essence of the gospel message?

The world around is bleeding and dying and needs the gospel of the resurrected Savior.  Dare we waste our time and attention putting Band-Aids on the scratches? Perhaps it’s time to not focus so much on what we do “in church” and focus more on being church, the body of Christ ministering to a dying world? How do we do that? Surely we must start by putting down the Band-aids.

Three Dog Night

I'm not talking about the classic 70's rock band.  No, I LIKED them.  "Joy to the World" ("Jeremiah was a bullfrog...) was a classic! No my rant for this morning is about MY three dog night last night.  This morning I was woke up by a dog whimpering or snuffling or whatever.  We have had a little pomma-terrier-whatever mutt named Maggie at our house since 2000 when we finally got a dog for Angelynn.  But Maggie was Angelynn's dog for two weeks; then she became Lynn's dog.  Neither Angelynn nor Lynn had a vote; Maggie chose Lynn.

We didn't know Angelynn harbored this grudge until she came home for summer break this summer with a German Shepherd puppy named Marley.  Her dog.  Marley is almost a year old now, and for the last month (and the next one) Marley has been living with his grandparents (that be us!).  The beast is almost big enough where I could buy him a saddle and ride him to work.  He is a constant bundle of energy who wants to play all the time and will chew anything he can get (I'm on my third pair of shoe strings and I have no slippers... and he literally ate Lynn's homework last week).  OK, I have to admit that he's kinda cute part of the time.  The rest of the time he's lucky I don't keep a loaded gun around.  Of course if I did, he'd probably eat it.

Angelynn came home for Christmas break Saturday, and this time she brought a six-week old Maltese puppy named Bella... for Tressa.  Now Tressa has always said she hates dogs.  All of a sudden she lost her mind or something and had to have this dog.  And guess where little Bella is staying for the next several days?  With us.  This is the dog that woke me up whimpering this morning, and ended up in bed with me!  So a three dog night.

I would say that I love all my grand-dogs and wish they could stay with us forever, but then that would be another Three Dog Night hit-- "Liar."

Who Do We Worship

Back in October, I mentioned a piece by Ben Stein that had been circulated around the internet. Unfortunately, his article was combined with an interview of Anne Graham Lotz and several others and with other stuff made up out of whole cloth and then it all was attributed to Stein. Sites like snopes.com are extremely helpful in separated internet myth from what is true. If we are concerned with truth, it is dangerous to pass along stuff you are emailed or stumble across on the web. A lot of it is simply false.

Anyway, I suggested way back when that Stein’s article (the one he actually wrote) was actually pretty good, and I suggested that I would reprint (repost?) it a bit closer to Christmas. Well, it is a bit closer to Christmas, so here it is straight from his website. (It was written in 2005, so his reference to Nick and Jessica is a bit dated. Maybe replace it with Brad and Angelina?)

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

The Fifth Act

I ran across an old blog by John Mark Hicks, a Bible professor at Lipscomb. John Mark has all kinds of connections here at Denbigh. His father was the preacher in the church where Lynn grew up, so they’ve been friends forever. John Mark and I were old camp buddies, and we were at Freed together. John Mark held a seminar for here at Denbigh several years ago, and Lynn and I have him at Pepperdine for several years now. You can read some of John Mark’s works at his web site.

In his blog, John Mark compares our lives as Christians today “living out biblical theology” to a troop of Shakespearean actors performing a play. The analogy isn’t perfect, but then no analogy is. I thin this one does a good job capturing our task as people who live in God and under the Bible.

Our life in Christ is analogous to a group of Shakespearean groupies who have newly discovered a five act play by Shakespeare. It was previously unknown. But the problem is that the last act is missing. We only have the first four acts. The last act is lost. Suppose, however, these scholars, actors, etc., want to perform this play. How can they perform it without the last act? They will have to improvise. In order to do so, they have to "live and breathe" the works of Shakespeare. They will know all his other works, thoroughly know this present play, understand how his mind works, etc. With their "Shakespearean mind" they write and perform the final act as they imagine Shakespeare would have written it.

The analogy is.... We have Scripture which bears witness to the mind of God in Christ. We have the first act-Creation. We have the second act--Israel. We have the third act--Christ. We have the fourth act--the early Church (Acts & the Epistles). We are the fifth act. And we currently perform that fifth act as best we can imaginatively enter into the mind of God in Christ. We live out that mind; we perform the fifth act on the basis of the first four acts.

John Mark goes on to point out that we don’t have a script for living the Christian life in the 21st century. We come across many questions and issues that could not possible be addressed directly in the Bible. I had a professor that was once asked to speak at big a philosophic conference in Europe on “The Bible and In Vitro Fertilization.” Where do you look in the concordance for verses on that—under “I” or “V?” No matter where you look, you won’t find it there. You won’t find specific verses on the Christian and gene splicing, thermonuclear war or recycling. Our (post)modern world brings us in congress with many issues not addressed in the Bible. All we can do is to we seek the mind of God in Christ through the first four acts of the play, and then seek to live out what God would have written had He written the fifth act.

John Mark adds that God has written the sixth act of the play. We know how the story ends. There will be a new heaven and earth where there is no more of the props that dominate the first five acts-- death, mourning, crying and pain. God will make everything new. That is God’s own breathtaking conclusion to the drama of the cosmos. All we have to do is immerse ourselves in acts 1-4 so that we can Biblically improvise our little part in act 5. If we do that, we will be center stage with Jesus taking our bow after the final curtain.

Christmas Services

"Boy, this must be a busy time of year for you!" I get that a lot when people find out that I'm a minister. This is the Christmas, and churches do a lot of special things during this time of the year. I got a postcard from the Presbyterian church across the street advertising their special Christmas services-- two on Christmas Eve, one on Christmas Day and one the day after Christmas. There have been times in the past when we have done Christmas plays for children. One year we did a big Christmas musical entitled "I'll Be Home for Christmas" that involved 1/2 of our church. We'll have our "Christmas service" this Sunday where we sing Christmas songs and
reflect on the meaning of birth of Jesus. So we're not opposed to that sort of thing (though we usually get someone from internet-land writing in to complain that we would do something so "denominational.")

Well, we certainly aren't opposed to doing special things during this special time of the year. But one thing is usually true of our church Christmas services-- they are never on Christmas! Most of our church is from other places, so generally when school lets out, our church lets out and scatters to the four winds. We can't plan anything special during the holidays because we can't count on people being in town. So while many churches are planning big Christmas eve services for next Wednesday, we're trying to decide whether to have services at all! Maybe we'll just anoint next Wednesday as "stay at home night" for the few people who aren't out of town anyway.

So this isn't particularly busy time of year for me. I still have a week of vacation time left, and I think I'm going to take it and let Roger preach the Sunday after Christmas.

The Weight of Our Baggage

In his book The Living Faith, Lloyd C. Douglas tells the story of Thomas Hearne, who was on an expedition to explore to the mouth of the Coppermine River. A few days after they had begun, a party of Indians attacked and made off with most of their supplies. His comment in his journal after this apparent misfortune was, "The weight of our baggage being so much lightened, our next day’s journey was more swift and pleasant." Douglas makes this observation--

Hearne was in route to something very interesting and important; and the loss of a few sides of bacon and a couple of bags of flour meant nothing more than an easing of the load. Had Hearne been hole in somewhere, in a cabin, resolved to spend his last days eking out an existence, and living on capital previously collected, the loss of some of his stores by plunder would probably have worried him almost to death.

Remember the poor widow of Luke 21 who gave her last two copper coins to God? Maybe she was willing to loose everything she had because her heart was moving toward God as the only true source of wealth. Jesus said, “This poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” (Luke 21:3-4)

Once we become settlers, we hoard our blessings of time and talent and money for ourselves. When we continue to explore and move toward God, we may decide that much of our stuff weighs us down and holds us back on our journey. We know in our hearts that we can't take anything with us when we die. Maybe our journey would be "more swift and pleasant" if we didn't travel with so much baggage!

I know that the timing of this post is pretty bad—right before Christmas when we are rushing to add to our baggage. On second thought, maybe the timing is perfect.

Testing the Spirits

When I was a youth minister (long, long ago and not so far away), I met a young man who turned out to be a youth minister in another Christian tribe. We struck up a conversation and shared a cup of coffee. We had a lot of things in common— we had similar educational backgrounds, similar job challenges… and elders. But we also had some basic differences. He had a different eschatological expectation than did I. And he was more charismatic than was I (I have about as much charisma as a rock). So… what do you think we ended up discussing the most— our similarities or our differences? You guessed it! We ended up in a friendly debate over a variety of doctrinal issues.

After we had gone round and round on amillennial versus premillennial end-time theories (why did we get stuck on that?), he finally said, “We getting too hung up on doctrine stuff; why not just stress Jesus?” Then he added, “Maybe if we stress Jesus, maybe all these other things won’t matter so much.” Well, it took me awhile, but I came to see that he was right (Lynn would say that this usually takes a long while.) I still think I was right on the individual issues that we discussed. And I think it is good to have such discussions when they are done in a Christian and brotherly way (and I think they were that day). But I think he was right that our common ground in a common faith in Christ and a common reliance upon His work at the cross trumps makes our doctrinal differences less critical.

My NT reading today begins, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). We are to test the spirits because not all are from God. The Bible says too much about the dangers of apostasy to believe that doctrine is unimportant. The elders at Ephesus would face (and cause) a distortion of the truth (Acts 20:29-31). Timothy would have to deal with the doctrine of demons (1 Tim 4:1-2). But at the same time, we must understand that the gospel is not at stake with every difference or nuance in our understanding. There are some issues over which we fight over and just aren’t worth fighting over! I think Paul may be talking to us when he refers to controversies which are “foolish and stupid” (2 Tim 2:23-24).

Yes, John tells us to test the spirits to see whether they are from God because there are many false prophets in the world. But John’s test of doctrinal orthodoxy is pretty basic, and it says nothing about one millennial positions or mode of church music. He focuses on Jesus, “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God” (1 John 4:2-3).

My youth minister buddy thought that if we would focus more on Jesus, our doctrinal differences might not matter nearly as much. I wish I could have that cup of coffee with him all over again. I think the conversation might be different.

Peace on Earth?

Tis the season to be jolly!  At least that is what some of you tried to convince yourselves as you were out before dawn on Black Friday trying to beat the hordes to the one item that Wal-Mart or Best Buy had on sale for next to nothing.  There are all kinds of stories in the news like this one from Fox News--

According to the Manatee County sheriff's report, 37-year-old Thomas Edward Lackie was arrested last week after he threw a 3-foot Christmas tree at his father. The tree missed, but Lackie then tried to use the steel base from the tree to strike his father. His father and mother were able to grab Lackie's arms to prevent the attack. Deputies say the tree could have caused serious injuries because the metal base weighs about five pounds. Lackie was charged with felony assault.

Someone needs to take a chill pill and a refresher course on "the reason for the season." Trying to brain your father with a Christmas tree seems is a fairly egregious violation of the "peace on earth and good will toward men" that this time of year is supposed to be about.  Perhaps someone went a wassailing a wee bit early?

The pastoral winter scenes that mark many of our Christmas cards belie the fact that this season is the most stressful, hurried and harried time of the year for many people.  Christmas shopping for an every expanding list of gifts, spending money you don't have on stuff we don't need for people who already have everything-- that's not the way to peace on earth or anywhere else. 

If there really is a reason for the season, surely it's not making sure Wal-Mart has a happy new year. 

Silly Love Songs

I was just sitting here thinking about an old Paul McCartney song he wrote in his Wings days entitled “Silly Love Songs.” You know the one—

I read somewhere that this song was written in response to John Lennon criticism that McCartney had sold out and was writing silly love songs that sound more like Engelbert Humperdinck. So McCartney wrote "Silly Love Songs" which became a #1 hit (for 5 weeks) and was one of top songs (#13) of the 1970's.

So why bring up silly love songs? Well, it’s Ezekiel's fault. My daily Old Testament reading brought me to Ezekiel 33. Earlier in the chapter, Ezekeiel is given his famous challenge to be God’s Watchman (33:1-20). It was the job of the watchman to sound the alarm when danger threatened the city. If the watchman sound the alarm and the city fell, then he was absolved of responsibility. But if the watchman failed to raise the alarm, then the responsibility for the city’s demise rested on him. Ezekiel then faithfully acts as God’s watchman as he delivers the news
that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed. (33:21-29).

One would think that being a prophet of gloom, doom and destruction would be difficult. Just ask Jeremiah how well such a prophet is treated! But Judah’s response to Ezekiel was very different. There was something about Ekekiel that was evidently entertaining, and the people gathered to watch the show. Notice Ezekiel 33:30-32

“As for you, son of man, your countrymen are talking together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, saying to each other, ‘Come and hear the message that has come from the Lord.’ My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice. With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice.

Did the people listen to Ezekiel? Yes and no. Yes, they listened… like they would go to a concert and listen to a silly love song. But no, they did not listen… they did not take his words seriously enough to act upon them. God says, “They hear your words but do not put them into practice” (33:32). The text ends on an ominous note for Judah, ““When all this comes true—and it surely will—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.” (33:33)

Do we ever listen to preaching while not listening to it? Have you ever heard a really good sermon, and then you mentioned that it was a really good sermon to someone. And then they asked you, “Really? What did he say?” And you couldn’t really remember? What’s wrong with that? Listening to God’s word does us no good unless we are willing to act on it. We might as well be listening to silly love songs. We might as well be building a house on a foundation of sand.

My Head Hurts

My head hurts. I started reading an online debate posted on Al Maxey’s website between Al and Darrell Broking. The topic of the debate was “Patternism,” the idea that the NT is a specific blueprint or pattern that determines every aspect of Christianity so that every church will look pretty much alike in every detail. OK, by the way I described the topic, you can tell I’m not a subscriber to that idea. The reason I started reading the debate was an email sent to Al and posted in his Reflections (a weekly email post that I read). Al posts all of his emails-- supporters, detractors and all in-between. Most of the emails aren’t quite so vitriolic as this one--

Al, you are lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut and just as venomous. Hypocrite!! Judgment is coming, and the Hell you deny is awfully hot! It is pretty clear that you belong to the postmodernistic Emerging Church Movement, or the "Church of Make-Believe." You all write about "grace," "the cross," and "love," but you actually root none of these concepts or items in New Testament teaching. You've merely co-opted the imagery to fool folks into accepting your leadership on your journey into theological oblivion and subsequently into the abyss. Blind leader of the blind!! Folks like you are Socialists and Marxists in their social views as well, which is where you will eventually wind up - in the political camp with the far left of the Democratic Party. You're all a bunch of half-baked, ultra-ultra-liberal New Age hippie freak-types who have more in common with the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus and the Nazi Martin Heidegger. By the way, Al, the Nazi Heidegger, your philosophical godfather, says "Sieg Heil" to you in your bunker! We were close to the truth about you when we were ragging on you about the military.

Well, isn’t that special! Can you believe anyone would respond to someone with whom they disagree in such a juvenile, infantile rant?  Would anyone see this as Christlike behavior? Did Jesus say, "They will know you are my disciples by the vehemence and ugliness with which you nail heretics?  No, Jesus said something about love, a topic the author of th email evidently doesn't much appreciate.

Sadly, the author of this paragraph isn’t a ten year-old in need of some serious woodshed time but rather a preacher in our area.  Evidently there aren't enough heretics nearby to root out (he disfellowshipped us several years ago), so he had to go after Al Maxey some 2000 miles away in Alamogordo, New Mexico.  So many heretics, so little time!

What’s the point of bringing this up on my blog? Well, I spent so much time reading through the debate that I might as well get a blog for my trouble… and not just a headache.